Guilty plea in Facebook harassment case

A Sydney man has plead guilty in a Facebook harassment case that may be a test for how the law deals with abuse online, writes Jack Moran.

The way the law sees harassment and abuse online could be changing, if the unfolding of a recent court case is anything to go by. On Monday Zane Alchin, a 25 year old from Sydney, plead guilty to sending sexually violent threats to a woman over Facebook.

Ms Melville was then confronted online with many abusive comments being made on the post and sent to her directly. In an interview with ABC earlier this week, Ms Melville said that she had received attacks from strangers about her weight and her sexual activity while also receiving rape threats.

Mr Alchin was one of these commenters, sending out threats and insults to both Ms Melville and the friends that came to her defence over the post. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, court documents state that in January, Mr Alchin plead not guilty to the charge against him and said that he did not know the internet trolling was a crime. He also said that when he posted the comments, he was drunk.

Sexual Violence Won’t Be Silenced (SVWBS), an advocacy group that friends of Ms Melville started, said in a Facebook post that they were “extremely pleased” that Mr Alchin plead guilty and that it demonstrates “there is a precedent in Australian law that says this behaviour is unacceptable”. In an interview with Channel Ten’s The Project on Tuesday night, however, SVWBS founder Paloma Brierley Newton did say that initially she was told by police that there was not a lot they could do about it.

While Mr Alchin won’t be sentenced until late July, the media and legal exposure on the case has made a powerful statement on how we should be dealing with threats and harassment made against women online in the future.

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Jack Moran is a Bachelor of Communication student at the University of Newcastle, majoring in journalism. He enjoys watching romantic comedies, impulse buying comic books and regularly planning how he would survive a zombie apocalypse.